Patna, July 19: Patna police on Wednesday busted a gang that used to provide candidates admission into an engineering college in Andhra Pradesh by forging documents and photographs of original candidates.

The gang used to collect money from candidates, assuring them admission into Visakha Institute of Engineering & Technology at Visakhapatnam.

The police have arrested Sriniwas Ram, a college official and Hyderabad resident, and two others - Manjit Kumar of Siwan and Mohammed Arshad Ali of Gaya.

"The gang used to target mostly people from Scheduled Caste category who receive monetary assistance from the state government," Patna senior superintendent of police (SSP) Manu Maharaaj said. "Some officials of Visakha Institute of Engineering & Technology in Visakhapatnam were also involved in the scam. The gang carried out 1,000 admissions by forging candidates' names and photographs."

Police sources said the gang would first find out names of candidates, especially from SC/ST category, who were to take admission into engineering colleges outside Bihar. Under a state government scheme, students from SC/ST category pursuing higher studies outside Bihar get financial assistance from the state government, which bears their tuition fees. After identifying such candidates, the gang took down details of such candidates from the college website. After this the gang hunted for candidates interested in studying in engineering at college outside Bihar.

Once the dummy candidates were found, the gang morphed photographs of original candidates with those of dummy candidates. "The gang used to collect money from dummy candidates and even from colleges, as some officials from the college were involved in the operation," the investigating officer in the case said on condition of anonymity.

It was still not clear how so many admissions took place on the basis of forged documents but the police said this was a big catch and would help unearth more names in the fake admission racket.

Highway robbers

Patna police busted a highway robbers gang that used to target drivers on the highway. The police have arrested 16 people, including Amit, a member of the banned PLFI (a Maoist outfit). The gang was also involved in the theft of over 300 vehicles in Patna, Nalanda, Begusarai and other areas.